I’ve always wanted to learn how to do the tablecloth trick — 10 Comments
The instruction tips left off the essential: talc (or corn starch).
The cloth needs to be lowered in friction by dusting it with the absolute finest talc.
This is why the trick is always done with a WHITE table cloth.
The actual amount of talc needed is trivial. It can’t saturate the cloth as then it will leave residue everywhere.
The cloth can not have any (friction) complications at all.
Pulling down stops one from hoisting the objects vertically — which would consequently cause them to be supported — however momentarily — by the cloth. The trick depends entirely upon inertia and low friction.
Which also means that the table, itself, has to be flawlessly flat, too.
its like the two beer bottles dollar trick
its not just pulling fast, but pulling downwards as well
this insures that you dont lift the cloth and have it be at an angle which topples things.
when i was a teen i designed a few magic tricks for a company that hired me to design a logo…
the category of this has to do with exploiting or not, drag coefficients… so guess what kind of cloth works better than others?
also, a lot of things at the fair ground rely on this property and the fact people dont usually understand it well. even less today given video games and movies where their only experience of some physical effects is whats on tv… ergo phd doctors thinking i could output the light of the sun for 6 hours they need using a 9volt radio battery… even they see too many movies and cartoons and never connect that the battery in their phone doesnt last a year.. zip. nada… no ability to reference reality to at least be in the ball park
the carny trick that uses this the most is the quarter on the billiard ball. the harder you hit it, the less likely you will succeed… the trick is to barely tap the ball, so that it barely rolls and the quarter then rolls off of it. hit it harder, the friction coefficient is so low, the quarter suspends in the air like wile e coyote and then falls in place.
easy peasy…
blert
your added points also are why this was always done in front of horrified wealthy patrons in fine dining or dining room…
ie. glass tops, or polished wood, satin or silk table clothes, no talc needed like worn cotton linen.
i could probably make a living on all the tricks and physics bets i could have with people. suffice it to say, such has saved me much money over the years, and pool saved me much much more… 😉
one of my favorite bets at fine dining, which has the right silverware, is that i can put three glasses on the table. they are farther apart than the knives are long. i then bet that i can put these three knives on the glasses and have them hold a fourth glass without moving any of the three glasses or anything else but arranging the three knives.
i have watched people fumble for long times and short times depending on their level of “i dont want to lose this bet” or “i dont believe their is any answer, and he is making us fumble around”.
there are two versions, one with three knives and four glasses, and another with four knives and five glasses… 🙂
others i know have nothing to do with tricks, they just rely on the fact people dont know much about much and what they think thanks to the zeitgeist makes it even harder for them.
Men and women are the same? ok, so any man that believes that should be able to go to an edge of a table, and hold it with palms up (like you were going to live it) on the edge touching each other. straighten your arms. now touch your elbows together. [this one is better than putting them up against the wall and having them bend over to pick something up!]
and others have to do with being able to do math or understanding the world, and so on.
remember, a magician is an honest con man.
he says he will trick you and will take your money
but you will enjoy the trick, and not mind what he takes
I was directing a comedy for a local community theater, in which all the action takes place in a restaurant kitchen. At one point one of the waiters takes a tablecloth and uses it as a cape.
I decided to add the tablecloth trick to the scene, and was lucky enough to get advice on how to pull off the trick from a magic shop. We used stoneware, which barely moved when the actor snatched the cloth away from the table. The reaction from the other, unsuspecting actors had the first time the waiter (who had been practicing earlier that day) pulled off the stunt was priceless. Made me almost wish we’d kept it a secret from them until opening night.
I guess the only party tricks I learned were martial arts related stuff.
Be sure if you try it at the grand Thanksgiving dinner in November that if it fails, you can tear a phone book in half.
They may want to bum rush you for destroying the carefully prepared feast, so you have to look strong. : )
(assuming anyone has a real phone book)
After watching the vid, I noticed how “stepping back” allowed the combination of hand acceleration with body weight power.
It’s the same kind of concept used to accelerate force into a human target to break things internally.
The magician has superb muscle coordination with that level of coordination: far better than even 1-5 year average martial artists in hybrid hard/soft arts like Aikido. The ability to coordinate the muscle acceleration of your upper arms to synch it with the gravity acceleration of your body weight downwards, is a high level skill. Although not the highest or most difficult ability that can be tested.
Looking at the step 3 “step back “(annoyingly, they don’t show the legs in post shots), that does indeed count as a backwards drop step.
Those that know about the drop step, often consider it one of the more efficient methods to generate power in upper body strikes. It’s not too far fetched to consider it using the force of gravity to power one’s hits.
A drop step moves the center of gravity of a person’s torso over his front leg, as his leg is in the air stepping forward. As the front leg lands, all the weight is immediately on that leg and hip joint, allowing the back leg to shuffle up. If you notice how he steps back, his weight is already seated on his back hip and he does a minor movement (good balance control), and then his front leg immediately pulls backwards, following the end of his movement. That is indeed the reverse of the front drop step, only shifting the weight backwards.
The bend in his hips and stomach is tailored for the specific height of the table, which is not normally used in H2H attacks or defense. But that’s understandable.
Well, well, the world is a pretty small place to share such similar bio mechanical movements.
This is clearly the place to go on the web to learn the important things in life!
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The instruction tips left off the essential: talc (or corn starch).
The cloth needs to be lowered in friction by dusting it with the absolute finest talc.
This is why the trick is always done with a WHITE table cloth.
The actual amount of talc needed is trivial. It can’t saturate the cloth as then it will leave residue everywhere.
The cloth can not have any (friction) complications at all.
Pulling down stops one from hoisting the objects vertically — which would consequently cause them to be supported — however momentarily — by the cloth. The trick depends entirely upon inertia and low friction.
Which also means that the table, itself, has to be flawlessly flat, too.
its like the two beer bottles dollar trick
its not just pulling fast, but pulling downwards as well
this insures that you dont lift the cloth and have it be at an angle which topples things.
when i was a teen i designed a few magic tricks for a company that hired me to design a logo…
the category of this has to do with exploiting or not, drag coefficients… so guess what kind of cloth works better than others?
also, a lot of things at the fair ground rely on this property and the fact people dont usually understand it well. even less today given video games and movies where their only experience of some physical effects is whats on tv… ergo phd doctors thinking i could output the light of the sun for 6 hours they need using a 9volt radio battery… even they see too many movies and cartoons and never connect that the battery in their phone doesnt last a year.. zip. nada… no ability to reference reality to at least be in the ball park
the carny trick that uses this the most is the quarter on the billiard ball. the harder you hit it, the less likely you will succeed… the trick is to barely tap the ball, so that it barely rolls and the quarter then rolls off of it. hit it harder, the friction coefficient is so low, the quarter suspends in the air like wile e coyote and then falls in place.
easy peasy…
blert
your added points also are why this was always done in front of horrified wealthy patrons in fine dining or dining room…
ie. glass tops, or polished wood, satin or silk table clothes, no talc needed like worn cotton linen.
i could probably make a living on all the tricks and physics bets i could have with people. suffice it to say, such has saved me much money over the years, and pool saved me much much more… 😉
one of my favorite bets at fine dining, which has the right silverware, is that i can put three glasses on the table. they are farther apart than the knives are long. i then bet that i can put these three knives on the glasses and have them hold a fourth glass without moving any of the three glasses or anything else but arranging the three knives.
i have watched people fumble for long times and short times depending on their level of “i dont want to lose this bet” or “i dont believe their is any answer, and he is making us fumble around”.
there are two versions, one with three knives and four glasses, and another with four knives and five glasses… 🙂
3 Knives and a Glass — TRICK
(i guess he didn’t count the other glasses?)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Op6dNzlgtg
4 glasses 3 knives trick explained
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPMDk9VU2O4
others i know have nothing to do with tricks, they just rely on the fact people dont know much about much and what they think thanks to the zeitgeist makes it even harder for them.
Men and women are the same? ok, so any man that believes that should be able to go to an edge of a table, and hold it with palms up (like you were going to live it) on the edge touching each other. straighten your arms. now touch your elbows together. [this one is better than putting them up against the wall and having them bend over to pick something up!]
and others have to do with being able to do math or understanding the world, and so on.
remember, a magician is an honest con man.
he says he will trick you and will take your money
but you will enjoy the trick, and not mind what he takes
I was directing a comedy for a local community theater, in which all the action takes place in a restaurant kitchen. At one point one of the waiters takes a tablecloth and uses it as a cape.
I decided to add the tablecloth trick to the scene, and was lucky enough to get advice on how to pull off the trick from a magic shop. We used stoneware, which barely moved when the actor snatched the cloth away from the table. The reaction from the other, unsuspecting actors had the first time the waiter (who had been practicing earlier that day) pulled off the stunt was priceless. Made me almost wish we’d kept it a secret from them until opening night.
I guess the only party tricks I learned were martial arts related stuff.
Be sure if you try it at the grand Thanksgiving dinner in November that if it fails, you can tear a phone book in half.
They may want to bum rush you for destroying the carefully prepared feast, so you have to look strong. : )
(assuming anyone has a real phone book)
After watching the vid, I noticed how “stepping back” allowed the combination of hand acceleration with body weight power.
It’s the same kind of concept used to accelerate force into a human target to break things internally.
The magician has superb muscle coordination with that level of coordination: far better than even 1-5 year average martial artists in hybrid hard/soft arts like Aikido. The ability to coordinate the muscle acceleration of your upper arms to synch it with the gravity acceleration of your body weight downwards, is a high level skill. Although not the highest or most difficult ability that can be tested.
Looking at the step 3 “step back “(annoyingly, they don’t show the legs in post shots), that does indeed count as a backwards drop step.
Those that know about the drop step, often consider it one of the more efficient methods to generate power in upper body strikes. It’s not too far fetched to consider it using the force of gravity to power one’s hits.
A drop step moves the center of gravity of a person’s torso over his front leg, as his leg is in the air stepping forward. As the front leg lands, all the weight is immediately on that leg and hip joint, allowing the back leg to shuffle up. If you notice how he steps back, his weight is already seated on his back hip and he does a minor movement (good balance control), and then his front leg immediately pulls backwards, following the end of his movement. That is indeed the reverse of the front drop step, only shifting the weight backwards.
The bend in his hips and stomach is tailored for the specific height of the table, which is not normally used in H2H attacks or defense. But that’s understandable.
Well, well, the world is a pretty small place to share such similar bio mechanical movements.
This is clearly the place to go on the web to learn the important things in life!